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Statistical Mechanical Approach to the Equation of State of Unitary Fermi Gases

De Silva, N Theja

Published Jul 14, 2016• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We combine a Tan's universal relation with a basic statistical mechanical approach to derive a general equation of state for unitary Fermi gases. The universal equation of state is written as a series solution to a self consistent integral equation where the general solution is a linear combination of Fermi functions. By truncating our series solution to four terms with already known exact theoretical inputs at limiting cases, namely the first three virial coefficients and the Bertsch parameter, we find a good agreement with experimental measurements in the entire temperature region in the normal state. Our analytical equation of state agrees with experimental data up to the fugacity $z = 18$, which is a vast improvement over the other analytical equations of state available where the agreements is \emph{only} up to $z \approx 7$.

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Physical Review A•Jun 10, 2011•11 citations
We combine a Tan's universal relation with a basic statistical mechanical approach to derive a general equation of state for unitary Fermi gases. The universal equation of state is written as a series solution to a self consistent integral equation where the general solution is a linear combination of Fermi functions. By truncating our series solution to four terms with already known exact theoretical inputs at limiting cases, namely the first three virial coefficients and the Bertsch parameter, we find a good agreement with experimental measurements in the entire temperature region in the normal state. Our analytical equation of state agrees with experimental data up to the fugacity z=18z = 18z=18, which is a vast improvement over the other analytical equations of state available where the agreements is \emph{only} up to z≈7z \approx 7z≈7.
Abstract Using universal properties and a basic statistical mechanical approach, we propose a general equation of state for unitary Fermi gases. The universal equation of state is written as a series solution to a self consistent integral equation where the general solution is a linear combination of Fermi functions. First, by truncating our series solution to four terms with already known exact theoretical inputs at limiting cases, namely the first three virial coefficients and using the Bertsch parameter as a free parameter, we find a good agreement with experimental measurements in the entire temperature region in the normal state. This analytical equation of state agrees with experimental data up to the fugacity z = 18, which is a vast improvement over the other analytical equations of state available where the agreements is only up to z ≈ 7 . Second, by truncating our series solution to four terms again using first four virial coefficients, we find the Bertsch parameter ξ = 0.35 , which is in good agreement with the direct experimental measurement of ξ = 0.37 . This second form of equation of state shows a good agreement with self-consistent T -matrix calculations in the normal phase.
We develop a simple, mean-field-like theory for the normal phase of a unitary Fermi gas by deriving a self-consistent equation for its self-energy via a momentum-dependent coupling constant for both attractive and repulsive universal fermions. For attractive universal fermions in the lower branch of a Feshbach resonance, we use zero-temperature Monte Carlo results as a starting point for one-step iteration in order to derive an analytical expression for the momentum-dependent self-energy. For repulsive universal fermions in the upper branch of a Feshbach resonance, we iteratively calculate the momentum-dependent self-energy via our self-consistent equation. Lastly, for the case of population imbalance, we propose an ansatz for higher-order virial expansion coefficents. Overall, we find that our theory is in good agreement with currently available, high-temperature experimental data.
Third- and higher-order quantum virial coefficients require the solution of the corresponding quantum many-body problem. Nevertheless, in an earlier paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 260402 (2012)], we proposed that the higher-order cluster integrals of a dilute unitary fermionic gas may be approximated in terms of the two-body cluster together with an appropriate suppression factor. Although not exact, this ansatz gave a fair agreement up to fugacity $z\ensuremath{\approx}6$ with the experimentally obtained equation of state. The objective of the present Brief Report is to give some physical arguments in favor of this ansatz.
We briefly review current research progress in the field of strongly correlated atomic Fermi gases. A deep understanding of strongly correlated quantum gases is plagued by the lack of either exact solutions or a controllable small interaction parameter. In this work, we present a systematic virial expansion method to study the high-temperature thermodynamics of a strongly correlated Fermi gas,where the controllable parameter is given by the fugacity,exp (μkBT),with μ being the chemical potential. A practical way is proposed to obtain the expansion coefficients for both homogeneous and harmonically trapped Fermi gases. We calculate, for the first time accurately, the third-order virial coefficient. The resulting equation of states at high temperatures is compared with a recent thermodynamic measurement and with Monte Carlo simulations.
Strongly interacting, dilute Fermi gases exhibit a scale-invariant, universal thermodynamic behavior. This is notoriously difficult to understand theoretically because of the absence of a small interaction parameter. Here, we present a systematic comparison of theoretical predictions from different quantum many-body theories with recent experimental data of Nascimbne et al (2010 Nature 463 1057). Our comparisons have no adjustable parameters, either theoretically or experimentally. All the model approximations seem to fluctuate rather than converge on the experimental data. It turns out that a simple Gaussian pair fluctuation theory gives the best quantitative agreement, except at the critical superfluid transition region. In the normal state, we also calculate the equation of state by using a quantum cluster expansion theory and explore in detail its applicability to low temperatures. Using the accurate experimental result for the thermodynamic function S ( T ), we determine the temperature T of a trapped Fermi gas at unitarity as a function of a non-interacting temperature T i , which can be obtained by an adiabatic sweep to the free gas limit. By analyzing the recent experimental data, we find a characteristic temperature ( T / T F ) 0 =0.19±0.02 or ( T i / T F ) 0 =0.16±0.02 in a harmonic trap, below which there are deviations from normal Fermi-liquid-like behavior that may be attributed to pairing effects. Here, T F is the Fermi temperature for a trapped ideal, non-interacting Fermi gas. Our thorough comparison may shed light on the further theoretical development of strongly interacting fermions.
We compare the theoretical predictions for universal thermodynamics of a homogeneous, strongly correlated Fermi gas with the latest experimental measurements reported by the ENS group [S. Nascimb\`ene et al., Nature (London) 463, 1057 (2010)] and the Tokyo group [M. Horikoshi et al., Science 327, 442 (2010)]. The theoretical results are obtained using two diagrammatic theories, together with a virial expansion theory combined with a P\'ade approximation. We find good agreement between theory and experiment. In particular, the virial expansion, using a P\'ade approximation up to third order, describes the experimental results extremely well down to the superfluid transition temperature, Tc 0.16TF{T}_{c}~0.16{T}_{F}Tc​ 0.16TF​, where TF{T}_{F}TF​ is the Fermi temperature. The comparison in this work complements our previous comparative study on the universal thermodynamics of a strongly correlated but trapped Fermi gas. The comparison also raises interesting issues about the unitary entropy and the applicability of the P\'ade approximation.